Pizza Hut's first website was built in 1994 [1]. This webpage has Javascript (1995) [2] running Google Tag Manager (2012) [3]. The article about Pizza Hut's first website [1] provides more context than just the webpage.
Quote near beginning to put things in context of where we were back in 1994 :
“ To participate in the pilot, hungry Santa Cruzers need computers with Internet access and a version of an Internet interface program called Mosaic.”
But other interesting predictions:
“Instead of simply letting people order a pizza, why not let them design it as well? Instead of showing an ordinary menu with a list of toppings, show a picture of a pizza with the toppings clustered on the side.”
And then :
“Why not customized T-shirts? Log on to the Internet and browse through assorted logos and designs. Mix, match and modify them to suit your interest. Then superimpose them onto the virtual T-shirt on the screen. Hit the right key and within 48 hours your new shirt is Fed-Exed to the desired address.
Of course, this network designability concept easily extends to bouquets of flowers, boxes of chocolates, fruit baskets and the $6.85-billion annual market in mail-order clothes shopping. It would be perfect for all kinds of gift giving.”
You may be correct in that the bulk of the market is in standard pizza & t-shirts, but the internet/computers didn't create that market.
The article was pointing out what ordering over the internet with computers can potentially add to the ordering experience. Using the "web" in the same way one might have used a fax machine isn't particularly interesting then or now.
Fun fact: Googling "mosaic" today returns a page full of results about art. Even if you search for "mosaic software", you get a bunch of software for creating mosaics. If you want to read about Mosaic today, you need to already know that it's a browser.
My first Internet browsing experience was on Netscape Navigator in 1996. Even back then I wouldn't have known about Mosaic, which pretty much was Netscape.
“Instead of simply letting people order a pizza, why not let them design it as well? Instead of showing an ordinary menu with a list of toppings, show a picture of a pizza with the toppings clustered on the side.”
Whoever does this for Mongolian BBQ delivery will be the next Bill Gates.
It's interesting that the article suggests that making a phone call would be preferable to ordering online. There's been quite a culture change since then; I'll do anything to avoid having to make a phone call.
And yet there was a thread recently where numerous commenters rolled their eyes at the need for accessibility for the blind on the web, because “Can’t you just call?”
For even more irony, Pizza Hut’s and Domino’s pages from the mid-90s are more blind-accessible than the meth-addled versions of today. We’ve somehow regressed.
Its funny when I type "Pizza" into Google, the first organic result is Pizzahut.com, not bad for a bunch of lazy developers who don't take Google SEO into account.
Ordering pizza might be one of the few things that is better to do over the phone than online. It's far quicker to say "Pickup, a large pizza, half pepperoni, well done", than to fight through the combobox salad of seemingly every pizzeria online ordering system.
I disagree, but only because that order will get turned into a large pizza with all pepperoni pretty regularly. Modifiers get lost on phone orders very regularly.
Modifiers get lost on online orders very regularly, too, as I've learned from the sheer number of Uber Eats orders I've placed where my request for "no bun" or "no bread" gets ignored.
Or I could just order online and make sure it is right the first time?
Also, there is no way I'd just call in and say "Pickup, a large pizza, half pepperoni, well done" because that just seems incredibly rude so calling would take even more time. Much easier to load the website/app and enter your pizza
Every pizza joint around me has better deals when calling in.
I can't imagine you've ever called a pizza place. It's a business transaction, there's no pleasantries on either side. It's not rude. They want to move on with the business as quick as you want to hang up.
Maybe it's just a North East thing but my calls for pizza are about 10 seconds long and I've never thought "Gino is being rude, he didn't ask me how I was doing"
Eh, at least the 2 local pizzerias that I order from can both locate my account from a phone number, so if I call & say I've ordered before they just need to confirm the address. One of them does have online-ordering; and while the page is decent I still find it faster to call.
Haven't ordered from Pizza-Hut online, but ordering online from Dominos was absolute hell. There is no way to view your total without clicking through to checkout, and prices aren't listed. So the only way to find out what a specialty pizza costs is to add it to the cart, dismiss all the upsell popups about adding dessert and a soda, then view the cart.
Plus, even on a desktop computer with a decent connection it loads so much crap. The page ends up being heavier than Youtube, and I fail to see why I need to load as much resources to order a pizza vs. watch streaming video. Not worth it, especially as their pizza is neither particularly good or particularly cheap.
well, it seems like if the system is tracking you, then it should only be hard the first time. then it should default to your known preferences. unless you order a different pizza every time...
Preferences aside, a phone call is much more practical.
Via web..
* Ordering could easily fuck up somehow. Eg. Send multiple identical pizzas cus you pressed the button multiple times, cus the 1st time u pressed it nothing happened. I read about this actually happening recently.
* You dont get confirmation from a human.
* You cant ask questions and get answers from a human.
* You could only order what the app allows and nothing else.
* You'll probably need to register / login, forget your password, reset it, etc. etc. It will take a lot longer.
The big problem with customer service nowadays is thats it's impossible to get hold of a human you can tell your problem to, and who will hopefully deal with it (eg. google)
I used to work for Domino's. I also often order pizza.
In both roles, online ordering was worlds better than a phone call.
As a Domino's employee, it was a lot easier and faster to get an order from the online system. It was often more accurate too. We didn't have to ask the drunk customer to repeat their order multiple times, then have them rage at us when we delivered what they ordered, only to find out it was not what they thought they were ordering.
As a customer, it's faster and more efficient to order online. I can save a custom order and have my really weird Frankenstein pizza ordered at the click of a button. Also, payment online is far easier and more reassuring than handing over credit card details on the phone (and don't get me started on cash).
> * Ordering could easily fuck up somehow. Eg. Send multiple identical pizzas cus you pressed the button multiple times, cus the 1st time u pressed it nothing happened. I read about this actually happening recently.
I don't think I've ever had an online order experience any of those problems. On the other hand, I've had countless phone/human interactions that have led to order screwups, usually misspellings of my name/email/phone number despite my spelling it out for the person.
Otoh spelling out my name and address and phone number and card details over the phone and making sure there's no mistakes takes minutes whereas I can type it all in and make sure it's correct in 30 seconds
Me too, although it bugs me that he says Snow Crash "describes a future where Americans excel at only two things: writing software and delivering pizza in less than 30 minutes".
The book clearly states that Americans excel at four things:
> Amusingly, the date on this article and the fact it still loads today.
I expect it was more recently put online from the archives, but retaining its date of authorship (as it should) rather than being originally published online in 1994 and remaining there since.
great article! It's not mentioned there, but I think the "conventional phone lines" meant fax, which was a pretty common gateway from the internet at the time. One of the McCools (can't remember if it was Rob or Mike) had a new-fangled CGI script that enabled a HTML form to order Jimmy Johns sandwich and it used UIUCs email-to-fax gateway to fax the local shop. Good times.
At my university, someone did a demo of what ordering a pizza would look like online, using Pizza Hut's site as an example, sometime in 1994-95.
I remember thinking to myself that was a ridiculous idea, because all of the stores would have to be wired up to the Internet, and who would do that?
That ignored, of course, the possibility that a central location could take the orders and communicate them to the individual stores (which is how it worked for phone ordering at one point, maybe even today), and I completely whiffed on the future ubiquity of the Internet.
You could have made a fortune betting against my computer prognostications in the 90s.
> That ignored, of course, the possibility that a central location could take the orders and communicate them to the individual stores (which is how it worked for phone ordering at one point, maybe even today)
Wait, really? I worked in several pizza restaurants around the early 2000s and we always took the phone calls directly. It was very common to get questions about stuff like directions and opening hours, or weird special requests, which I can't imagine working very well with a remote call center setup. I don't want to doubt your claim, I'm just surprised to hear it.
It's actually true of Pizza Hut right now. I had to call in an order because the online form didn't have the option I wanted, and the operator on the other end definitely wasn't even in the same state I was.
The sad part of my failed prognostication was that I had worked as a Pizza Hut delivery driver a few years previously and that’s exactly what they did.
People called a central dispatch and we received printouts of the orders. We would call the office to let them know our current projected delivery times, but other questions they could already answer.
Can't find the source, but I remember reading an author from the 60s who predicted the internet, but also predicted you'd treat it like a catalog and still have to call in and read off the product numbers you wanted to order and communicate them to a human operator -- even for someone who could predict the internet, it still seemed like a leap to suggest that even the order itself could be processed over that same network!
The Web was a huge driver of Unix adoption. Before the Web came along, Unix was on the ropes. The conventional wisdom was that Windows NT would eventually finish it off, owning the server space the way regular Windows owned the desktop. But all the early tools for standing up a Web site were Unix-centric, simply because the Web's roots were in science and academia rather than traditional corporate computing. So when the Web started getting big, Unix started getting big too, and never really stopped.
Presumably someone at SCO thought an online pizza ordering service would be a good way to demonstrate the value a Web site could have for businesses. And that demand for Web sites would in turn mean demand for SCO's Unix products.
Yes, the original SCO was "good". It was Caldera Systems's CEO who started the lawsuits, suing everyone, they even sued Novell for the Unix trademark, and obviously got a notorious reputation and turned SCO into a dirty world. And of course, it almost lost all cases and his company became an utter piece of garbage.
Seriously, what was the CEO thinking about?! I guess Caldera Systems purchased SCO, thought it was a good deal, but they suddenly found the days of commercial proprietary Unix were ending and the purchase was a mistake, and this is how they started its assaults.
I'm not 100% sure if it was SCO, but Pizza Hut restaurants ran some flavor of UNIX in the stores in the early 90's.
On our local BBS list, there was one named Pizza Hut and it was just a UNIX login. We'd dial in and try a few passwords then get booted.
One day I was at a restaurant with my parents, and sure enough, there was a terminal behind the counter with that same login prompt! I figure some employee must have leaked the phone number or someone found it wardialing.
> On our local BBS list, there was one named Pizza Hut and it was just a UNIX login. One day I was at a restaurant with my parents, and sure enough, there was a terminal behind the counter with that same login prompt!
> someone found it wardialing.
Aha! It was the amazing days, you just dial a bunch of numbers in your area, and you get all sorts of exposed mainframes and servers from various organizations on the phone line. It was the origin of the common hacker trope.
Today, computers are ubiquitous, but most of them are embedded devices, IoT, smartphones or PCs, you can never find a mainframe in the wild again, the green-blinking CRT terminals from the 80s and the impression of "hack everything" is long gone,
There's a gorgeous HTML comment in there, referring to a 1994 creation date
****************************************************************************
* *
* PIZZA HUT INC. *
* *
* PHI proprietary information: the enclosed materials contain *
* proprietary information of Pizza Hut Inc. and shall *
* not be disclosed in whole or in any part to any third party *
* or used by any person for any purpose, without written consent *
* of PHI. Duplication of any portion of these materials shall *
* include this legend. *
* *
****************************************************************************
**
** HTML index.html
**
** DESCRIPTION Home Page.
**
** REVISIONS
** Date Who Comments
** ---- --- --------
** 08/18/94 SCO created.
**
"Shall not be disclosed to anyone" on a public facing web page. It took a long time to train people out of that one. Remember email signature disclaimers? Still some of those around.
Let's collect all the internet's historical pizza moments. I've collected a few from the comments here and added a few.
- 1990, Don Hopkins uses the PizzaTool to fax a pizza order.
- 1992, Snow Crash is published. Readers imagine interconnected virtual worlds and action packed pizza delivery. Often quoted book in regards to internet, MMORPGs and pizza.
- 1994, Pizza Hut's Pizza Net allows users in Santa Cruz to order pizza.
- May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz buys two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins (valued at around 30 USD at the time).
2004, a perl script pizza_party is published allowing to buy pizza from the command line. I think it was even in some distros' package managers for a while.
Yeah, looks like regional redirect. For me redirects to .lv which returns SERVER NOT FOUND error. Probably should have been PIZZA NOT FOUND error or PIZZA UNDELIVERABLE.
Try long-pressing or right clicking the back button to get a menu of past locations. This used to be a visible and discoverabledrop down menu in most browsers but (insert rant about modern UI design here).
The cert loaded on pizzahut.ca is for shortener.secureserver.net. The cert for www.pizzahut.ca is good for *.pizzahut.ca, but they're just not loading it for pizzahut.ca. :/
In a way, I miss the naive old web. Now you get popups, requests to have your location, prompts to sign in before you can get deals, etc. In many ways a simple web form asking for pizza is a better user experience.
Imo, whatever annoying tradeoffs a commercialized web brought with it, it was wholly worth it for giving literally anybody the ability to learn anything they are curious about.
1080p Harvard compsci lectures[0] available for free would have been a pipe dream in 1995.
I agree It's pretty amazing what a resource the web has become, but I don't think it's all that clear what trade-offs have been made, and if the implications of those are just mere annoyances.
I had a similar thought when I landed on the site. On the other hand, some features/trends of modern websites could improve some aspects of our user experience. For instance, automatically getting my location could be sometimes useful. Makes me think where the optimal middle ground is.
When ready to order, I agree. However, when browsing for what's available, it's a frustrating experience. The last time I wanted to see prices from Papa Johns, I couldn't. They want you to sign in with your pizza profile, which I didn't have. Ok fine, enter your zip code, then pick delivery or pickup, then pick the store. Why do I need to do all of this to see prices? It more often than not just makes me skip it and move on to a competitor...
"2020 was the year that would decide between two pizza deliveries techniques. Amazon-Google drone-based delivery or the MIT's supersonic pizza railgun"
But more expensive. However engineers estimate that an appropriate rail gun would have 10 times the range of an average drone so would cover a wider area.
Apparently, the site automatically redirects me to the standard German site. Fantastic. My hate for the modern web continues to grow. You could replace the protagonists of I Have No Mouth with walking, talking websites and it'd roughly mirror what I'm feeling right now. The only way I could see what everybody was talking about was by checking out https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/pizzanet/ and the archive.org page which were linked by somebody else.
Looking at this old site, I see the future of the web. This navbar + hero + a bunch of marketing fluff that nobody reads.. it's grandma/grandpa shit. It's like those walmart photograph frames with teddy bears on them. It seems cool now, you can make six figures making this shit, but it's ridiculous.
While probably not really Pizza Hut's first web site, I think this goes a long way to show how a lot of the internet has actually regressed. We've gone from this simple form that just asks "Who wants pizza and where can we call you?" and, instead of going to "Who wants pizza and where should we bring it?", we went to ads and pop-ups and to a place where, arguably, the process is way more complicated than it needs to be.
A few years back their site wouldn't work with some adblocker options, I believe their js didn't handle the circumstances of if their geoip analytics was blocks.
I just emailed their support, gave them the details, and they fixed it and gave me a $20 card. Was a nice transaction.
What was the actual date on this? I assume it was wayyyy before 2014 haha.
Imagine telling them back then that someone could fill out all the details on the website, choose their pizza and customise toppings AND have it delivered by a robot.
You could already select the toppings. Drone technology was not prevalent back then, but no one would think you were high. They were living the dot-com bubble. They would probably invest in that idea if anyone pitched it the right way.
SCO is synonymous with evil old school unix. A lot of mainframes ran it, and my first job was dealing with some old SCO/ATT bastardized system. Interestingly enough, I never bothered to know what SCO stood for until now.
The full name Santa Cruz Operation only refers to the original SCO company (which sold itself in 2001), not the SCO Group which purchased SCO and turned its name into a dirty word. Unlike the SCO Group, the original SCO was old-school commercial Unix, but it didn't have such a bad reputation. Quite a few hackers in the Unix world worked with the original SCO.
Thanks for the history, seriously interesting! My interaction was shortly after 2001, but on an ancient system. Guessing it had some parts from both histories.
It's important to clarify that the SCO Group in the Linux disputes was not the original Santa Cruz Operation, Santa Cruz Operation sold all Unix business to Caldera Systems in 2001, and it was Caldera Systems's CEO who started a bunch of lawsuits, suing everyone, Red Hat, and various Linux users, they even sued Novell for the Unix trademark, and obviously got a notorious reputation and turned SCO into a dirty world. And of course, it almost lost all cases and turned SCO as a company into an utter piece of garbage.
Seriously, what was the CEO thinking about?! I guess Caldera Systems purchased SCO and they suddenly found the days of commercial proprietary Unix were ending and the purchase was a mistake, and this is how they started its assaults.
Unlike the SCO Group, the original SCO didn't have such a bad reputation. Quite a few hackers in the Unix world worked with the original SCO. Also it used to hold a Unix conference, speakers included Linus Torvalds.
Pizza Hut's first website was built in 1994 [1]. This webpage has Javascript (1995) [2] running Google Tag Manager (2012) [3]. The article about Pizza Hut's first website [1] provides more context than just the webpage.
[1]: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/pizzanet/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#History
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products#Advert...